2011-12-11

Occupy Calgary has disbanded following a successful court injunction last week, but they did leave a freestanding piece of public art (in the most generous of senses) behind. The City of Calgary will temporarily put the piece into storage and contact the artist. If it is displayed somewhere, it will need to be treated so that the bare metal isn't exposed to the elements common in Calgary like heavy rain, heavy snow, insane chinook temperature variations, and prairie hurricanes.

But with the death of Occupy Calgary, I couldn't let this comment from the bottom of the story (by omgwtf):

Isn't it ironic that they left a statue that will not survive in the elements. Don't cha think? It's like rain on your ungalvinized metal structure. Ungalvinized movement leaving ungalvinized art behind. Good one.

2011-12-05

Scientists have discovered, at the centre of galaxies NGC 4889 and NGC 3842, supermassive black holes. 21 billion suns of mass in the former, about 10 billion in the latter.

These results are more than just cool and record-setting. Observations with the Hubble Space Telescope over the years have shown that such monster black holes seem to inhabit the centers of all galaxies — the bigger the galaxy, the bigger the black hole. Researchers said the new work could shed light on the role these black holes play in the formation and evolution of galaxies.

And what are the implications?

Astronomers also think the supermassive black holes in galaxies could be the missing link between the early universe and today. In the early days of the universe, quasars, thought to be powered by giant black holes in cataclysmic feeding frenzies, were fountaining energy into space.

Where are those quasars now? The new work supports a growing suspicion that those formerly boisterous black holes are among us now, but, having stopped their boisterous growth, are sleeping.

Mr. McConnell said, “Our discovery of extremely massive black holes in the largest present-day galaxies suggests that these galaxies could be the ancient remains of voracious ancestors.”

These supermassive black holes are impressive, but there's an even bigger black hole out there, right in our own galaxy, where nothing can escape and anything that gets too close dies and shrivels.

2011-10-16

Last night the Oilers lost (surprised?) to the Canucks, 4-3. However, that score flatters the Oilers as Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (RNH to some, heretofore referred to as "The Nuge 2.0") scored all three goals, reminiscent of Doug Weight's playoff heroics in a 5-3 Oilers loss years ago.

Or...did he? (The Nuge 2.0, I mean, not Doug Weight).

You can watch all three goals in review on YouTube here. At the time the third goal was scored I thought it was Horcoff, the HNIC team said Hall, and the scorekeeper said The Nuge 2.0. Only one of the three of us was correct, and for once it was the CBC besting me. Please don't tell anybody.

Here's the tale of the tape. For American readers I'll also include a lower-res photo with the relevent area circled in blue.

In the above photo we can see the puck rifling at high speed towards the net, where The Nuge 2.0 shot it from about 4 feet away. When you watch the video you can see the speed and the direction of the puck.

In this second shot, you can compare to the first to get a rough idea of the puck's direction, which I've marked in blue. Notice that this trajectory is likely to take it wide of the net, or at the very least far to the right side (Luongo's perspective).

After the puck passes the plane of Luongo and Hall's sticks, its momentum changes immensely. Instead of a high speed bullet going to the right, it's not a slow flipping puck passing close by Luongo's side. Clearly, one of these two sticks has impacted the puck. I believe its Hall's, though a claim exists that it was Luongo's. From the video at this angle, Hall's seems the more likely candidate.

The rough new course of the puck is shown here. What isn't clear from photos but you can see on Youtube is how much slower the puck is going, and that its spinning end-over-end as it dribbles towards the net. RNH's original wide shot is now headed right for the goal, but can Luongo stop it in time?

The small circle here is the location of the puck, and the two larger circles are Horcoff (up top) and Hall (below) swinging their sticks towards it. Luongo's stick is moving back there as well. All three men sense there's a chance to stop that puck in time.

I've circled Horcoff's stick here to show that he did not make contact with the puck, which is still near the goal line. Horc and Luongo both have their sticks behind the crease: Horcoff to bat it in (and failing), Luongo to knock it back before it clears the line. Remember that this above-the-net shot is a little deceptive: you "see" the puck pass the crossbar before it actually crosses the goal line below, despite the crossbar and the goal line lining up. This is a weird angle that Hockey Night in Canada fans have just had to mentally adjust to. At this point my original guess was wrong: Horcoff's stick didn't touch the puck.

Here's roughly the same moment as the previous photo from the different angle. Hall's stick is about to contact the puck before Luongo, pushing it into the net. It seems fairly clear by this point that the puck has yet to cross the line. Even if Luongo was 20 feet away from the goalmouth at this point and the goal was a certainty, if Hall touches it here than its his goal, and not The Nuge 2.0. If the puck had crossed the line, then it depends who -- Luongo or Hall -- redirected the puck earlier.

This is roughly the moment contact occurs. Hall gets the puck a microsecond before Luongo, but even if it was reversed Hall's angle of holding his stick gave him considerably more power, and moments later the puck is buried in the back of the net. Hall definitely pushes the puck in, and the only question is whether or not the puck has crossed the line fully. Tyler Dellow is 100% positive that it has, though I'm not convinced.

Here's that back angle showing roughly the moment where the puck (circled and hidden by the crossbar, water bottle, and webbing) changes direction. Both Hall and Luongo's stick movements could have caused the deflection, but Hall's stick is higher, corresponding better with where the puck was contacted. Again still pictures aren't easy, but when you watch the video it seems clear that had Luongo's stick hit the puck it would have deflected further away from Luongo rather than turn sharply right (from the puck's perspective) and head towards the net. Again, Hall touched it here. It no longer matters whether or not it crossed the goal line.

The goal-scorer? Taylor Hall. The loser? Well, still the Oilers. I won't do a post about the defensive breakdowns in that game, I have neither the time nor the urge to slit my wrists.

So far today I've had grand sport on Twitter ripping on the idiots at these Occupy events and their foolish signs. For some reason, Calgary's twitpic'ers didn't do much, so I had to grab a couple from the CBC website.

Top Canadian CEOs apparently make more than 4000 or so minimum wage lackeys combined. Forgetting the obvious fact that they are (by definition) worth more than 4000 or so minimum wage lackeys, as you watch "Niko Guerra" (note the likely fake name) sit with his sign, imagine being in charge of hiring for any company and try to find a reason to pick him. Probably best to go with the fake name, pal. (Calgarians who know his real name are encouraged to leave it in the comments)

This sign here features 2/3rds of the old French Revolution slogan of liberté, égalité, fraternité. Since this is Calgary, that's the most French you'll see on any of these signs. However, as we've seen from the Occupy movement, "fraternity" isn't high on these people's list of priorities. Caring for our future as a shared society? Screw that man, I'm in a union! So he's replaced it with anarchy. You mean like the kind of lawless society that would remove things like free tuition, banking regulations, or...overpaid CEOs? No wonder he removed fraternité, it was probably at Niko's request.

2011-09-18

Well, it's that time of year again: University and primary schools have started back up, the leaves are changing colours, I'm being invited to about 6 different farms each weekend to 'help with the harvest' (ie. lift heavy things), birds are flying south, and Third Edge of the Sword brings forth our semi-annual joke:

2011-09-17

If you look at the bottom (it's also true of the top), when the 90th latitudinal parallel is reached the world just stops. Yet you can see that South America starts repeating: scroll east or west on Google Maps and the program shows you that the world indeed keeps going. But not so much north-south.

Shouldn't the south pole continue again below (this time upside down), with an upside down globe ending with a north pole that continues again right-side up? That's the conceptual way to look at it.

Of course, the thing about the bottom "line" of the world is that its actually deceptively tiny: The 90th parallel isn't even a line, it's a point. You can stand on the top of the world. Walk four feet away from the 90th parallel and you can walk in circles equidistant from the north pole. You are literally walking around the world in a manner of seconds!

Anybody who's driven in northern Alberta has found this map effect come to life. A 3-D world doesn't translate well onto a 2-D sheet of paper (it never can, as Carl Gauss proved mathematically in 1827). Since Alberta is defined by latitudinal lines, and since latitudinal lines are closer together the closer to the north pole you get (our world-walker crosses all 360 latitudinal integers within the span of 60 seconds), any map of Alberta has to choose between showing the BC and Saskatchewan borders as being parallel (which they ain't) or else failing to preserve right angles ("why is my GPS telling me every intersection in Athabasca is a 'slight turn'?"). They always choose the former, as the latter causes brains to explode.

So the next time you're thinking that that drive from Slave Lake to Grande Prairie looked further on the map, or you're wondering why Google Maps shows the northern half of Greenland looking like a hilarious cartoon island that's been attached to a bicycle pump, you're dealing with the same story.

2011-09-13

I've heard credible rumours that he's about a seven on the one-to-Ralph scale.

This is good news for me, as longtime blog readers are aware, I'm brutally in favour of alcoholic Premiers. It means fewer horrible alcohol-related laws like we saw under the Sober Stelmach Regime.

Bonus comment from Welke: "I can't actually back it up with anything solid, but the best thing about being a private citizen is that I can irresponsibly muckrake with relative impunity." This right after I basically accused Sherman of having a serious problem with non-alcohol related substance abuse. [but in all seriousness, really, we wonder if Dr. S. has been putting gasoline into paper bags recently. -ed]

2011-08-18

Little Room: This intense one-man show, starring and written by Jon Lachlan Stewart, is a great introductory play to anybody wanting to know why you bother dealing with the Fringe Festival. Not surprisingly its a few years old now, as it harkens back to the 'good old days' of the early 2000s Fringe.

It has energy, a unique storytelling style, and emotional resonance as Johnny struggles with growing up and fitting into high school with the debilitating disability wherein he's...well, batshit crazy. Just not there enough to be on the fringes, but not out of it enough to require being placed in an institution, he instead gets the ADHD treatment (a brief anachronism, as when he was a child the condition was still dubbed ADD). Later on, he befriends another antisocial little lout and the two of them muddle along aimlessly. However, Johnny lives with a curse: he sees what he believes to be a day in his future. As he fights, feuds, falls in love, and tries to separate from his parents, that threat looms (very vaguely) over him until...well, it's a fringe play so of course there's a collision.

Well acted, well paced, and with only a few small technical flaws, Little Room is definitely worth your time.

Well, the 2011 Fringe is already approaching its final weekend. And where the hell was I? Well, I fringed over the weekend but nothing since. Hey, I just came back from a big vacation, I'm not going into debt President Monkey-style or anything.

I did see a couple-three shows already though, and there is talk that I'll be attending another one or two over the weekend. It's a slow fringe year, but on the bright side I have been exposed to weather over 30 degrees Celcius.

This portal page, which will remain up until Sunday evening, will be the summary of all fringe-related writings on this blog, same as in 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, and (very briefly) 2006. And, as always in the Edmonton Fringe Festival, I have the one prevailing rule:

2011-08-16

From London’s Daily Mail: “Scientists have created more than 150 human-animal hybrid embryos in British laboratories.”

You don’t say. Now why would they do that? Don’t worry, it’s all perfectly legit, the fruits of the 2008 Human Fertilisation Embryology Act. So some scientists have successfully fertilized animal eggs with human sperm, and others have created “cybrids,” using a human nucleus implanted into an animal cell, or “chimeras,” in which human cells are mixed with animal embryos.

Steyn launches from here onto a bit about demographics [sit down before the shock knocks you down! -ed] but somehow I think another point got missed.

2011-08-15

Chairman Mar? The reddest, most tax-spend-happy, of all the PC leadership candidates? What on earth does he have in common with Scott Hennig of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation? They both breathe oxygen?

2011-08-10

Soon after the British/Dutch/French/Spanish holdings in Africa started getting their independence, you started seeing these stories, most recently from Zimbabwe.

Last weekend it's happened again: a black Marxist, busy running his country's economy to the ground, refuses to accept the world consensus about what economic policies need to be enacted. In response, an organization (usually the International Monetary Fund, this time credit org Standard & Poor's) issues a scathing indictment of the long-term financial well-being of the nation, making it clear what needs to happen. In return, the incompetent black Marxist angrily addresses the people and insists that, despite what some silly bunch of people more rational than him insist, his country is strong and continues to be enriched by the daily meddlings of his government.

2011-07-24

World of Warcraft has recently brought in a new patch, which I'm told comes with a lot of bugs, particularly in the changes in gameplay bringing about weird behaviour. In the spirit, I bring you this joke:

A man logs into his World of Warcraft account after the 4.2 patch is released. He discovers to his dismay that his health bar is stuck at 1%, he can't see any of the other members of his Guilds, and the Quest Log is empty. So he calls World of Warcraft technical assistance:World of Warcraft helpdesk, how many I help you?

Something's wrong. Your program says I have no friends, no accomplishments, and no life!

Will we hear about how this attack was a "false flag", as mentioned in the post title, whereby far-left ideologues in the Norwegian government come up with a scheme to keep down their political opponents and foster their big-government dreams in an age of fiscal austerity? In fact, let's look at the 5 steps as mentioned in that post:

Hire intellectuals in academia and enlist think tanks to invent new enemies. Check.

Hire journalists to pump the press with fabricated stories and lies to hype the dangerous new enemy. Check.

Stage a big false flag attack like 9/11. Done.

Get government agents and conspirators behind the 9/11 plot on television news stations immediately after the attacks to blame the enemies who were previously hyped in the press for the deed. Wait and see, part 1.

2011-07-10

The Edmonton Journal writing about empty school sites being reconverted:

EDMONTON - For about 15 years, Jean Deslauriers has watched the weeds grow on the field across the street, where a school was supposed to be built.

There are two other empty fields like it in Castle Downs, he says, and most people know by now there won’t be schools on them. That’s been disappointing for families who bought homes assuming they’d be close to a school, says Deslauriers, president of the Cumberland Oxford community league.

But if the field can’t be home to a school, Deslauriers has another idea.

“Why don’t they just give us a schoolyard and we’ll build an indoor soccer facility,” says Deslauriers, an ambitious fundraiser and dedicated community volunteer.

“If I could get a schoolyard, that would be terrific.”

Maybe, just maybe, Deslauriers’s dream could happen. The city has a new strategy to find better uses for this vacant public land, and recreation facilities are now one possibility.

Dozens of surplus school sites dot older suburbs such as Castle Downs. It took the city a few years of negotiations with school boards to come up with a new agreement to deal the land that boards were reluctant to give back to the city.

Okay, first off, if you look at this house for sale across the street from this site (more on that later) you see this neighbourhood was built in 1997. So already a massive factual hole has been built into the story: for barely a decade this "older suburb" has been luring kids to the upcoming schoolground.

Secondly, its only dumb luck that I found this house. Here's a screenshot of the article in case they change it (click to enlarge):

128th Avenue and 149th Street? Funny, I don't remember seeing a school site there...

I mean, that's two giant crocks of shit from the get-go, before even getting into the meat of the article. At that point, why bother reading anymore? No wonder rumours say the Journal is close to being shut down...

If you are going to go out driving and you're are going to park in that environment where you know there are a lot of predators, you know there's a lot of people out there, you are creating opportunity shall I say...there is consequences, not saying anyone deserves to be victimized, but the fact is you have to mitigate how you become a victim

.Of course, we know the difference: this isn't about trashy bitches wanting to have their cake and eat it too. This isn't a cheap excuse to attack men for the reality that we're bigger and stronger and are better at sex. So the outcry is minimal. The message -- a good one, at that -- is the same.

Crews are removing two traffic circles and continue to make changes to intersections, where 47 per cent of 28,480 collisions occurred in 2010.

“Some have a right laneway, instead of a T-junction where you would stop,” said Boutilier. “People have got into a lot of accidents in those particular areas.”

For those keeping score, the three worst intersections in the city are:

137 Ave and 97 St

118 Ave and Groat Road

Yellowhead Trail and 127 St

The top three collision causes (53% of which don't happen at intersections, by the way) are:

Following too close

Striking parked vehicles

Improper lane changes

True enough two of the three intersections in question have a right laneway. But then again, lots of intersections have the right laneway. All along 137th Avenue, or 170th Street, or 23rd Avenue, or 34th Avenue, or 75th Street are these same type of intersections. 95th Ave at 170 St, to pick a close-to-home example, easily has as much traffic volume at 97th and 137th. Maybe it's time to look at other factors? [Hey, isn't there an asian grocery store at 137th and 97th? -ed]

Oh...that would certainly qualify. How many accidents at Groat and 118th occur from somebody thinking that, insanely, the left lane must turn left and the right lane can go right or turn left. Like in every other intersection in the city. Between traffic lights and that turn system, no wonder Groat "traffic circle" is in so much trouble.

But then Mayor McCheese shows his usual degree of intelligence:

On Tuesday, Mayor Stephen Mandel expressed concern about the city’s injury collision rate per 1,000. In 2009, Edmonton’s (at 6.65) was higher than those in Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver.

“The numbers show we’re not being very successful,” said Mandel,

He wants to see more street-based enforcement such as 24-hour ticket programs and the speed-on-green cameras.

Hey genius, guess what both the Yellowhead/127 and 137/97 intersections feature? Speed-on-fucking-green cameras. They didn't work, did they? When Mandel says he wants more here, he's basically saying he wants more money. Likewise, "speeding" isn't on this list, phantom crime that it is, which is the only thing these "24 hour ticket programs" ever cover. When was the last time these ticket programs made sure people stayed in the correct lane while making the right turn at 119th St and 23rd Ave? Hell, at that same Yellowhead/127 intersection drivers never turn left into the right lane (lane control is in effect). If you devote police resources to the wrong cause, don't be surprised to see that the accident rate climbs even as the money in your greasy palms keeps flowing. Maybe, just maybe, Mandel should ditch the speed-on-green cameras (I wonder how many accidents are caused or almost caused by people doing what I and every other sane person now does: gun the engine to 110 km/hr or faster and then slam the brakes to the speed limit just in time for the intersection).

2011-06-28

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran says it plans to send a monkey into space next month as the next step in a space program that Western leaders worry could also bring major advances in Iran's missile arsenal.

Also...

The U.S. and allies are concerned that the technology in the space program could also be used to develop long-range missiles with possible nuclear warheads

Now on a certain level, Iran is crazy and should be stopped from doing crazy things with rockets. But on the other hand, the United States itself started off by putting monkeys into space. It seems a little odd that they'd complain about putting monkeys in space now, especially when they're even willing to put one in the White House.

Why Bill 205 Matters: road construction on your streets cries out the latest nonsense from the far-left Alberta Party. Whenever you see anybody use the phrase "better regulate" you should brandish a shotgun. When the Alberta Party uses it, you need to pack a couple of grenade launchers along just in case.

Here's the relevent bit, emphasis mine:

The full title of the Bill is the Municipal Government (Delayed Construction) Amendment Act, 2011, and its goal is to provide municipalities with the tools to better regulate construction within their boundaries. Bill 205 was created as a response to a number of stalled developments in the province – most notably the site at 4th Street and 21st Avenue SW in Calgary. The good people of the surrounding community have been living with this unsightly fenced-in hole-in-the-ground for nearly a decade now! Delayed developments hamper the vitality of communities, lessen their desirability for businesses and reduce the ability of residents to fully enjoy and experience their surrounds.Bill 205 would allow municipalities to protect the economic and societal interests of communities existing near to such construction sites, and ensure projects are not significantly stalled, suspended or delayed for unreasonable lengths of time. In these cases, municipalities should have the authority to require the landowner to improve the appearance of the site within a specified timeframe.

Stomping on the rights of private businesses to meet some third party (okay, fifth party considering the source) expectations on what the property should look like. Forcing others to "protect societal interests of communities" by restricting the freedom of property owners? Now that's politics done differently!

2011-06-18

Like many other suburban politicians, Ms. Rasode and her fellow councillors are grappling with a dilemma of urban place-making, brought home by the Stanley Cup playoffs: What spaces do we have for people to gather in public? Where is the heart of our city? And can we manufacture a heart if we have to?

As urban designers have long known, great cities provide the kinds of spaces that human beings seem to need as part of their pro-social wiring.

“When big things happen, people want to be able to engage with other folks,” says Andrew Pask of Vancouver Public Space Network, an organization that encourages the creation and preservation of the kind of non-assigned space that allows people to connect. “It's one of the few times when social barriers drop and people will engage with strangers.”

Typically, the best public spaces are somewhat enclosed spots that are already popular pedestrian areas, like Vancouver’s well-defined celebration street, Granville Mall.

"We have a small number of hooligans on the streets of Vancouver causing problems," Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson said in a statement. "It's absolutely disgraceful and shameful and by no means represents the city of Vancouver...We have had an extraordinary run in the playoff, great celebration. What's happened tonight is despicable."

Police said they had reports of four stabbings, though a spokeswoman for the city would not confirm them.

BCTV reported that at least 58 people were injured. CBC reported that at least 10 remain hospitalized Thursday morning and some may face surgery, reports CBS affiliate KIRO.

Officers from around the region flooded into downtown. It took about four hours before downtown was quiet again.

At the Bay store, a high-end department store, looters were seen grabbing T-shirts and young women were seen leaving the store with MAC cosmetics. The landmark building was filling with smoke as people continued to take anything else they could get their hands on.

The violence started when fans set fire to a stuffed bear decorated to symbolize the Boston Bruins.

Say, where is that Bay store downtown? Why, if it isn't Granville Mall! The very enclosed public space that apparently the suburbs are lamenting they don't have. So far the only advocate seems to be Barinder Rasode, a politician so far left she goes by "Ms". Sure Surrey spent millions on "Surrey Central Plaza", but city governments find ways to spend money on all sorts of silly ideas.

Edmonton, for example, has been blowing money into Churchill Square for a decade now. Where is the central party location in this city? Why, it's the corner of 104th and Whyte! Much like Vancouver's mall, it turns out that a wealth of private businesses people like to frequent to have a good time is the real secret to gathering the riotous crowds (as happened on Whyte in 2001 and 2006). Meanwhile, suburban BC planners spending huge sums of money for suburban party places may want to read this article...

The pictures and videos coming out of Vancouver since last night's Stanley Cup loss are sickening, pure and simple. There's no excuse for people turning a disappointment like that into a mass riot, and in the days and weeks ahead, we can expect a thorough analysis as to what happened, why, and perhaps a piece or two of blame thrown around.

Perhaps the first bit will go to the mayor of Vancouver, Gregor Robertson, for actively courting tens of thousands of extra fans into the city during the games to watch on huge screens.

2011-06-17

As the Canuckleheads lose another Game 7 against an Original 6 team suffering a drought dating back to before Vancouver even joined the league, it's time for a little photo rundown to celebrate the welcoming of Vancouver into the "Northwestern Conference team losing in Game 7" club, with an option for the Presidency in the "the only team that was favoured starting the season" category.

Remember thug-girls, the bling bling makes you feel great for a bit, and then your drug-dealing boyfriends get you pumped full of lead. Remember that when you turn down guys like me for the 50-Cent dream:

In both cases, here I am blaming the victim? Why? Because sometimes the victim makes a horrible mistake and deserved what she got.

2011-06-03

On Saturday, June 4 2011 the sluts shall go a-marching. Sorry, "sluts". These aren't actual sluts, alas. These are, to borrow from the classic joke, bitches. But for now, let's pretend they are sluts. They're dumb sluts, we've already covered this. But the stupidity of their cause isn't relegated to just not knowing where to put their feet. It's not knowing what not to put their feet (and other various body parts) into.

First let's get to the basics: if you do dress slutty, men are going to stare at you. We're going to catcall. We are going to tell you all sorts of sexual things we want to do to your body. And if you dress slutty and wave your ass in our face, we will do them. The organizers of this event are not oblivious to this point: what they want is a fake sexual revolution. They want to be able to impersonate sluts without actually being sluts, and that's unacceptable. If you don't want to be treated as a piece of meat, don't marinate and grill yourself and sit perched on a piece of garlic toast. You dress slutty, you show off the goods, you try to get a reaction, you will get one. Hint: it's not always going to be the one you want. If this is new or shocking to the sluts, then I suggest they go visit another universe because they are simply not going to be happy with the one they currently live in. [re-read the "Dumb Sluts on the Highway" post if you're a slut wanting an easy way to free yourself of this universe on June 4th and go visit another... -ed].

The slut marchers are so loud, so dominant, that we forget that we're talking here about a tiny loopy minority (the Edmonton fag parade comes with much the same caveat). Women are kowtowed by their uber-feminist sisters on this one: I've had a couple emails from readers who loved the "Dumb Sluts on the Highway" but were scared to even anonymously comment on it. Last weekend out on the town I overheard a group of 5 women all trashing Slut Walk for its insane silliness. "I can't complain about sexual harassment when I'm dressing like a girl who gets off on being sexually harassed". What next harsh reality are these girls planning to protest? If you walk into the Hell's Angels club on the Yellowhead wearing a rival club jacket, you're gonna get murdered. Do we 'blame the victim' for this crime? Uh, yeah. If you do something stupid, bad things happen to you. As I wrote last week:

if they don't want to pay the city they can have their little meeting at the Legislature grounds and then walk to City Hall: crossing on marked crosswalks when the light indicates its safe to do so. If the city is really worried about them stepping onto the road that's easy enough to fix: declare a full clemency to any driver who hits and/or kills one of these sluts if she happens to step off the sidewalk and onto the street. It's the slut's fault for defying the rules and social conventions, not yours. So in other words, pretty much the same harsh reality that the sluts are marching to try and defy in the whole "dress like a streetwalker" meme.

In both cases, the easiest and most cost effective solution is just to declare "if you dress like a slut you might just get raped, and if you can't keep your protest on the sidewalks understand that any man mad at his ex-wife has de facto authority to kill you with his car". We've already had all of this sorted out, we don't need slut marches and demands that judges ignore reality messing it all up.

Now let's turn to the sluts vs. "sluts" problem alluded to earlier. If you impersonate a police officer, or a massage therapist, or a doctor, or even an auto mechanic you'll be fined at best and more than likely spend some time in the slammer. Now when you impersonate a slut we don't fine you, and we don't throw you in jail. There's really only one punishment for dressing like a streetwalker when you aren't one: you do have to endure the occasional rape. You should really suffer it in silence. Accept the character flaw within you that caused this, and move on. Police and court resources are already busy enough with real criminals: like actual rapists who do nasty things to their niece or the homeless native chick passed out under the bridge, or a conservatively dressed urban professional walking to her car, or a girl out jogging in a track suit. To equate the act of actually violating and raping one of these people with having sex with a girl who's every square millimetre of public persona screams anybody who wants to can screw me right now is ridiculous. It reduces women to helpless automatons [the proper spelling is "reduces", not "highlights". I fixed the spelling and grammatical errors for you -ed], who are just out on Whyte Avenue in a blue Lycra mini and 3" red heels wearing more makeup than the average Sears store stocks when from out of the blue for a completely alien and unknown reason some man stuck his hand down her boob. It's utterly ridiculous. Society has established rules like this for thousands of years: there's a cultural undertone that is the equivalent of the fake sign on the photo at the top of this post. If you go out on the street in an outfit that would make Britney Spears feel uncomfortable, you do so knowing that your ultimate aim is to make men want you. Well, they want you now. Congrats. Oh, wait, you mean you didn't understand what that implied? That in the great Bell curve of sexual congress you've just pushed everybody on the right-hand side of the -2 std devs line past that imaginary barrier that says "there is no power in the universe powerful enough to stop me from sliding my finger inside your panties"? I call bullshit. You do know. But you want to be a virginal slut, to dress in ways that makes men helpless to their urges but still leaves you fully in restrictive control. If you give Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a machine gun and slowly parade Jewish dykes past him for an hour and a half, don't be surprised if the magazine ends the experiment a little on the empty side.

But, as the post title implies, the Edmonton Slutwalk girls have gone a step further. They are explicitly passing themselves off as sluts. This is fortunate, as it means that now we can start bringing the legal and moral force of society to bear upon them. To re-iterate:

Every woman marching in the Edmonton Slut Walk is publicly declaring herself a slut. This means every woman there desires sex with any and all partners. Any sexual activity you initiate with them comes with implied consent. They cannot say no, and if they do understand all their 'no's mean yes. They are all asking for it. They want it bad. Now. From you. Go get 'em!

Now if you disagree, if you think that's not what this is about at all, then two things come to mind:

If a bunch of women stand on the street claiming that they are shoe shiners, and they refuse to shine your shoes, you not only have a false advertising charge you can lay on them, but also discriminatory business practices. Women claiming to be nymphomaniacs who can't get enough may just find themselves having to explain why they are so prudish.

By their own admission, they are lying bitches. The worst kind of woman. All marching on the street. Together.

If your wife is one of them, I'm very very sorry. Maybe a good rape might make her a little more manageable around the house.

2011-05-28

As the title suggests, these are pretty dumb sluts, even for sluts. What, there's a cost to turning the Queen's motorways into a parking lot to express a rather silly and ultimately inaccurate sentiment? Quelle surprise!

Actually, and I'll go into this more on my actual SlutWalk post in early June, there's a bit of a corollary available here: as I tweeted yesterday if they don't want to pay the city they can have their little meeting at the Legislature grounds and then walk to City Hall: crossing on marked crosswalks when the light indicates its safe to do so. If the city is really worried about them stepping onto the road that's easy enough to fix: declare a full clemency to any driver who hits and/or kills one of these sluts if she happens to step off the sidewalk and onto the street. It's the slut's fault for defying the rules and social conventions, not yours. So in other words, pretty much the same harsh reality that the sluts are marching to try and defy in the whole "dress like a streetwalker" meme.

That's delicious irony, and is worth far more to the ratepayers of Edmonton than $2,000.

2011-05-03

Look how his head droops, how he struggles to make it sound like it was his idea that he meets with "party officials" to discuss his successor, and how he's unable to come to grips with what happens.

This is the darkest day in Michael Ignatieff's life. Halfway through the video you sense he probably wishes that Harper had gotten Canada involved in liberating Iraq so that he could join the Canadian Army, go overseas to participate in combat, be captured and tortured and forced to read a confession over the air with a gun to his head, just so he could have a more enjoyable May 3rd than he was having at this precise moment.

No evidence has yet come to light that Ignatieff did vote in 2004, and none likely will. Because if he had, Iggy is in serious legal trouble south of the border. He wasn't eligible to vote. Even registering would have been a federal crime. Did Michael Ignatieff vote or try to vote in 2004? Since it would have been "offline" its hard to say, but we have the man in print vowing to violate the elections laws of a country.

Harper's in trouble for his party in 2006 pushing the line on election financing charges. It takes a mere moment of inspection to realize how much much more serious this violation would be. It's tampering with the voter rolls (something the Liberals have been long-suspected of doing), sneaking ineligible people into the polls (something the Liberals have been discovered doing in BC), and attempting to usurp the democratic rights of 320 million people. That's a lot of crimes for Ignatieff to have claimed he was about to do. Technically that's conspiracy to commit, and its a federal crime in the way most things you hear joked as "federal crimes" aren't.

Yet it remains to be seen...was I really wrong? After all, I did throw in a little caveat at the end:

In other words, Stephen Harper's minority government could last a full 5-year mandate as the Liberals and NDP keep flipping positions on who wants an election and who wants the status quo. If we have an election soon and/or without a massive gaffe or mistake that drops Tory support, the only possible explanation is that somebody got really really bad advice. This one is a guarantee: in that event, look for one or more of the major parties to experience a very very rude awakening the morning after the election.

For the last couple of days, NDP supporters and analysts have been asking... "why did Jack Layton refuse to support the budget"? It has been noted that this budget has more carrots thrown to the NDP than even the 2009 budget that was intended to stave off coalitions. If Layton could sign off on the budget in 2009, why not this one? It seems they have started discovering what I noted in the 2013 post: that individual NDP MPs would have to worry about losing their seats seeing how the NDP is basically at the highest number of seats they could reasonably be expected to achieve. An election risks those seats, and by extension Layton's leadership. Dozens of competing theories have abounded why Layton would do this, most involving the word "cancer".

But then yesterday a bombshell dropped: Ipsos polling shows the Conservatives are pushing in on majority territory and the new question arises: is the party pushing for an election with bad internal polling numbers the NDP? Or should we instead be looking towards the Liberals?

After all, if the Ipsos numbers are to be believed the Liberals have had their support plummet to an almost inconceivable 24%. Is this poll an aberration, or does it jive with what the NDP number crunchers have themselves discovered: the Liberal Party of Canada is as vulnerable as it could ever be? Locking Stephen Harper into a majority now then seems perfectly sensible to the NDP: their current crop of 36 seats are going to survive this election more or less intact. Anything in the 32-38 range (some say 40, but I think this is pushing it) requires them to siphon huge quantities of Liberal votes, and that happens to be the seat totals that would keep Jack Layton in his position and his NDP cronies collecting sweet sweet Member of Parliament money...this time locked in for the next four years.

Meanwhile, the Liberals either didn't see this poll coming or found it to be an outlier...otherwise Ignatieff would have done what he did when his party was struggling in the polls last spring and begrudgingly back the budget to prevent an election.

Anyways, onto the actual election. I asked this morning what this election would be about, but didn't get much of a solid answer so far. Successful elections tend to be about big issues (Free Trade in 1988, the GST in 1993, Adscam in 2004). The 2008 election, where Harper squandered a majority by calling one for clearly self-serving reasons, serves as a prime example of the opposite. Whether in government or opposition, if you bring forward an election you need a damned good (and marketable) reason to do it. I just don't see that here. The scandals don't quite do it.

First we have the no-confidence motion itself. Contempt of Parliament sounds like a pretty intimidating phrase until you look into it and find out they just want to make exaggerated claims about Bev Oda again. It's hard to get worked up about a scandal that...

Has one side insisting that the buck has to stop with the Minister while the Minister and her Prime Minister are both busy insisting...that the buck stops with the Minister

Only came up in the first place because, as Maggie Thatcher once proudly noticed "advisers advise, Ministers decide" yet the Ottawa bureaucracy had a system designed where Ministers could only accept now or accept later. That very procedure had to change as a result of this "scandal" and the cure is not only worse than the disease but it in fact cures a far more serious disease simultaneously. Bev Oda, national hero to beleagured taxpayers.

Secondly we have the "In-and-Out" scandal. New financing rules for elections were brought out, and soon after an election was held. The Conservatives pushed the restrictions as far as the thought they legally could, and the enforcers disagreed. The rules were made more clear, the Conservatives stopped doing what they had done before, and in a lengthy process tried to make their case in a civil court. Ultimately, the narrow interpretation of the old rules were supported. The key problem about the In-and-Out scandal is that by the time you finish explaining what the background of the situation was, what exactly the Conservative Party did, and why what they did was wrong, the person you were explaining this scandal to has already walked away from you and is doing something far more exciting with a person they find far more interesting than you. Ultimately the executive summary of the In-and-Out scandal removes the entire "scandal" from the equation. It's the only scandal in history where when voters hear you explain it your poll numbers go down.

The Liberals, the party that brought in a $2,000,000 gun control bill in 1996 and discovered by 2003 that it was a $2,000,000,000 gun control bill, also wants you to know that the financial costs of proposed Conservative programs will increase. Increase by 1,000% you ask? Well, no, the Liberals will tell you (and ask why you picked such a curious number), but that's bad, isn't it? While the worry of cost overruns is serious, there isn't a party in Ottawa that can lay claim to the penny pinching defender of the public purse. Liberal attempts to be that party are laughable at best, insulting to the electorate at worst.

It's pretty clear at this point that not only has Stephen Harper gotten his hands on Jean Chretien's old Teflon Suit, but he's decided to wear it and roll around in some mud just to test it out. In early May there will be another General Election, but with the current poll numbers and Ignatieff's amazing track record of costing his party support with every summer tour, Jack Layton and Stephen Harper are the two leaders who aren't getting nervous ticks at night for reasons they can't quite explain.

2011-03-10

I shouldn't pick on David Climenhaga too much on the Raj Sherman file, as he is one of the few reflexive anti-Tories to realize that Sherman's claims have collapsed into dust and his political career is basically over. Parties went from wooing him to shunning him faster than studios reacting to Mel Gibson screaming at that Jew cop who wrote him the unfair ticket.

Needless to say, it will suit some people in the system very nicely if this sad affair turns out to have a half-life longer than a plutonium isotope.

Well does this mean they want the affair dragged out or not? The choice of Pu, which does not have any stable (non-radioactive isotopes) would seem to indicate the timeframe is short (ie. people want this all swept under the carpet lest the 10% true part of Sherman's claims become too important). But when you think of plutonium you're usually thinking about Pu-239 who's half life is four times the timeframe of human civilization, so maybe we're supposed to be thinking a long timeframe ("they" want the Sherman political theatre in full swing to cover up their misdeeds)

But there are also far more unstable isotopes: Pu-237 and Pu-239 have half-lives measured in microseconds. Yet when questioned in this in the comments, Climehaga claims he was talking about plutonium's most stable isotope, Pu-244 (80,000,000 year halflife). But if your rhetorical intent is to quote a very very long time, why bring up plutonium (in general: no specific isotope) in the first place? Why not a more stable element with numerous long-term radioactive isotopes like samarium or lutetium?

2011-03-09

The quick answer is yes. For one, the first click is programmed not to hit a mine. For two, theoretically you can randomly click on empty squares each time and get them all.

On a practical matter, however, the answer is no. Given a perfect algorithmic system you still can often be placed in "pure guess" situations.

For example, in this game I was just playing I had two unexplored squares, one of which contained a mine. Either the space between the 4s contained the mine, or the space along the edge between the two and the one. However, both squares met the mathematical conditions expressed in the four adjacent cells.